Chicago Film Critics: CRASH Best Picture

The Chicago Film Critics Association announced its picks for best 2005 movies on Monday night. Surprisingly, they picked CRASH as the years best pictures. It’s not surprising because the movies not good (it is), but it’s definitely not one of the buzz movies this awards season. CRASH also walked away with an award for Best Screenplay (written by director Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco). “Roger Ebert’s over-the-top enthusiasm for the film’s quality and message had a great deal to do with providing us the impetus to award it best film,” CFCA president Dan Gire told the Chicago Sun Times. “On the other hand, it’s an important movie addressing a very important topic that we don’t talk about enough, and it’s talked about, presented in such a wonderfully dramatized way that lets us see ourselves and society reflected in it.”

If you want to read an in-depth list, check out the Chicago Sun-Times article. But here are a few other notable winners:
BEST ACTOR: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)
BEST ACTRESS: Joan Allen (The Upside of Anger)
BEST DIRECTOR: David Cronenberg (The History of Violence)
BEST DOCUMENTARY: Grizzly Man

The Chicago Film Critics Association was created in 1988, and there are currently 61 voting members—film critics from newspapers, magazines, television, radio and the Internet.